HumanFuseBen Posted April 24, 2014 Report Share Posted April 24, 2014 Hey guys! Here's the deal… i'm about to get this: http://www.guitar-museum.com/uploads/guitar/117/230284698498-2.jpg Its an Ibanez RG520QS. Mahogany body RG, very sweet guitar. It has a thin veneer quilt top on it, which i plan on sanding through down to the bare mahogany. Its transparent blue, which, knowing Ibanez, is probably just a tinted clear they shot on top. I am wanting to steal the aesthetic of my buddy's white Les Paul special DC (kinda satin whitewash finish, adding a black pick guard, etc). It looks like this: http://www.mygear.com/img/item_pictures/large/36037.jpg http://media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/736x/19/ba/d1/19bad17abffb037a5421f9c4e445ac56.jpg its a really cool finish! It is kinda of like a thick see thru white finish. You don't exactly see through it, though… you can just kind of see the pores of the mahogany showing through. it looks killer in person. It is satin, not gloss. How would i go about doing this? I assume i will start with either sanding the blue finish off, or using a stripper to do the bulk of the work for me. But considering i WANT the grain pores, what do i need to do there? I assume the body was grain filled before the finish was shot, so i will need to un-fill them, if that makes sense! WHats the best plan there? and then, how could i get a finish like that white? Thank you all so much for the help. This board is the best. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ScottR Posted April 24, 2014 Report Share Posted April 24, 2014 If it were me (which by no means means this will be the best method), I would think I'd have to sand down past the grain filling to get back to open grain. Then I'd dye the body black and sand that back till the dye only remained in the pores. Then I'd spray with thinned down white coats, building it back up to the level of translucency that I was looking for. SR Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
HumanFuseBen Posted April 24, 2014 Author Report Share Posted April 24, 2014 okay cool! thanks man. I'm also a total bonehead and just figured out that the finish i'm looking for is TV White…. haha, i'm not exactly a Gibson historian! When you are talking about thinned out white coats, what kind of paint would be best? And what kind of topcoat is needed for that satiny goodness? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ScottR Posted April 24, 2014 Report Share Posted April 24, 2014 Beats me!. DemonX is our resident paint expert. I expect he would recomend automotive 2K for both the paint and the clear with a flattening additive to achieve the satin. You can surely get colored lacquers at the luthier supply houses like StewMac, LMII, and the like. See what they offer and read what is written about those products on their sites as a place to begin. SR Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Prostheta Posted April 24, 2014 Report Share Posted April 24, 2014 You would find it easier to buy a new Mahogany RG body. Stripping back all the paint leaves you with the Crapton sealer to get through otherwise you won't get any sort of grain-y finish. I would seriously consider duplicating the body you get on a table router and making a set of templates from it. Transfer though to a new blank. The amount of work you'll need to do to get through the Crapton means you will in all likelihood alter the sharpness of the body somewhere. It happens. I'm sure that between us we can walk you through this. Have you done this kind of woodwork before or are you specifically just want to mod an existing guitar in terms of just the paint? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
HumanFuseBen Posted April 25, 2014 Author Report Share Posted April 25, 2014 hey man! thank you so much for the input. Yeah, i would much prefer using this body rather than buying a new one or making one… i'm not up to the task of making all those precision routes and stuff! Is there some kind of stripper or solvent i could use to help dissolve that sealer coat? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Prostheta Posted April 25, 2014 Report Share Posted April 25, 2014 Not one that wouldn't melt wood. I have to quote this.... HUDSON Hey, if you like that, you're gonna love this... WIDER ANGLE showing the trooper standing beneath a gaping hole. Another hole, directly beneath, is at his feet. The acid has melted right down through two levels into the maintenance level. Revealing pipes, conduit, equipment...eaten away by the ferocious substance. I was probably getting ahead of myself and assuming too much. Sorry. I instantly thought you were wanting to strip a solid colour off the body. I'm not 100% sure on whether the same hellish polyester sealer is used under their clears....that is a clear back isn't it? If it isn't then you have far less of a task on your hands, hopefully. Thinking about it, the veneered top should sort of "protect" the wood underneath from any sealers and whatnot. You will still have glue to work through though. Do you know any woodworkers or schools with a thickness sander in the locality? On a flat consistent-thickness body like an RG, skimming off the paint and a smidge off the wood on both sides will save you a LOT of work and make it perfect. For a TV white I presume it would be a dark grain fill/dyed-sandback overlaid with a semi-opaque white as mentioned previously by ScottR. Apologies for jumping the gun a bit. The mere mention of "stripping paint" and "Ibanez" strikes fear into the hearts of the bravest, or in my case the stupidest. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
HumanFuseBen Posted April 28, 2014 Author Report Share Posted April 28, 2014 haha yeah a lot of those ibanez finishes are insanely heavy duty! its weird though, some of their colors, like the Grey Nickel and Royal Blue, are insanely thin and prone to chipping... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SwedishLuthier Posted April 29, 2014 Report Share Posted April 29, 2014 I made exactly that finish on a guitar a few years ago. Sand back to open pores, shoot a sealer coat or two of shellack of stor the neck step to make a mess, grain fill with a black (blackened) pore filler, sand off any excess until you have exactly the grains highlighted and nothing else of the pore filler remaining on the body, shoot another sealer coat or two of shellack, shoot a semitransparent white finish until you have exactly the coverage you desire, shoot a couple of protective layers of clear, sand flat (without sanding through!!!) and shoot one or two layers of semi gloss as final layers. I cannot stress the need for sealing coats of shellack (or other good sealer) as I had the pigments of the black pore filler bleeding through the white on the first attempts (probably technically wrong description, but thats what it looked like) making me have to go back and sand everything off. And always test om scrap Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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